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> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. There is no objective, Platonic measure of "popularity", and Google always
by yongjik 7y ago
> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved.
There is no objective, Platonic measure of "popularity", and Google always has to temper it with "correctness".
When someone searches for "california governor", Google needs to show results for "Gavin Newsom" instead of "Arnold Schwarzenegger", even though the latter is immensely more popular by any reasonable metric.
So yes, Google's engineers will keep tweaking the algorithm until it stops showing Arnold Schwarzenegger entirely. In search of correctness. Otherwise it will become unusable very quickly.
- perl4ever 7y agoBut there is no single right answer! Even a given person may want one answer in one context and another one in a different context. Popularity is not the answer, but neither is currency. A problem I run into repeatedly with Google is that I enter search terms and when it gives me the wrong thing, sometimes the opposite of what I want, it strongly resists my refining it. For instance, if I search for "turning off feature X" and everybody else searches for "turning on feature X", Google will "correct" me implacably. You're not allowed to turn "X" off. Back in the old days when it wasn't as intelligent, you could add words that would divert it from the popular cluster of hits. This isn't just an annoyance, I believe it's shaping society by determining which ideas and information thrive and which wither.